By permission of the artist, The Cyber Art Show is pleased to feature the second of two 12-piece exhibitions of works by Indian painter Nilanjan Guha (born 1977 in Kolkata, India). 
 

Nilanjan was born Kolkata, India also known as “City of Joy” and the cultural capital of India. It is very common practice in Kolkata to encourage kids to learn cultural activities from childhood. Nilanjan’s parents were no different and they put him in different extra- curricular activities like sports, drawing, painting and music in his youth. Nilanjan started learning drawing and painting in a nearby institute under the guidance of Shri Lalmohan Roy at the age of six.

 

From the outset, nature attracted Nilanjan and he loved to depict the visible and abstract colors of the outdoors in his paintings. Following the general trend at that time, Nilanjan started learning painting with watercolour as primary medium. He took special interest in the landscape, depicting his imagination of the village Bengal, which is full of vast fields, rivers, and various colorful plants. 

 

Growing up in a middle-class family, education was of prime importance. There was a gap in painting when Nilanjan spent some years completing his education, earning a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Bachelor of Technology in Polymer Science and Technology and Master of Business Administration in Marketing. His education shaped his professional career. 

Currently he is working with one of the major oil refineries in India and staying in Bangalore with his wife and two kids.

 

Nilanjan resumed painting three years ago, when his professional career took him to Garden City of Bangalore, India. His primary reason to start painting again was initially to encourage his son to paint,  but Nilanjan soon realised that he would carry his love for watercolours  for the rest of the life. Nilanjan’s wife also encouraged him strongly to continue watercolour and excel further. Since then, he has continued his journey into watercolours, completing his fantasy about nature and life.

Being self-taught, Nilanjan considers the world as his teacher and believes that watercolour is a continual and never-ending learning process. Apart from his professional activities earning bread and butter and looking after his family, he loves to spend every day with some activities related to watercolour. Watercolour gives him peace, watercolour gives him direction to live, watercolour frees him from stress and sometimes watercolour teaches him to see the world with completely new colors. To Nilanjan, no painting is good or bad but painting itself is paramount, a belief he has followed for the last three years. He has pushed himself to work each and every day in addition to maintaining his hectic professional life.

 

Nilanjan has come in contact with many talented artists in recent times in watercolour, but most importantly he has been fortunate to be in contact with Shri Eby N Joseph, an eminent artist from Kerala, India, who actually gave him a proper direction to move ahead in the field of watercolour.  

 

Nilanjan generally takes a free-flow impressionistic approach to watercolour painting, wherein he intends to depict the colourful vibrant life hidden in his subjects. Nilanjan also wishes to contribute to the watercolour world and the society through different welfare activities utilising his watercolour art.

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Selected Exhibitions​

 

· Selected for participation in International Watercolour Society UAE watercolor festival 2018 and winner of UAE Theme award

 

· Participated in International Watercolour Society India Biennale 2017 at New Delhi.  

 

· Selected for participation in International Watercolour Society Bangladesh Biennale 2018.

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